「Japan 1941: Countdown to Infamy」は日本の近現代史を英語で学ぶために参考になると思います。
Selected Events in Japanese History Prior to April 1941
Here and throughout the book, the dates are indicated in local times.
1853 July Commodore Matthew Perry presses Japan to end its isolationist policy.
1854 March 31 The Tokugawa shogunate signs the unfavorable Treaty of Peace and Amity with the United States, ending its isolationist policy and leading to the opening of Japanese ports to the rest of the world.
1868 January 3 The shogunate falls and the Meiji Restoration is proclaimed.
1882 January 4 The Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors, a code of military conduct that will form a vital part of Japanese nationalism, is issued.
1889 February 11 The Meiji Constitution is promulgated.
1890 July 1 Japan holds its first general elections.
November 25 The first session of the Diet, Japan’s bicameral parliament, is summoned, and held four days later.
1894 August 1 Japan declares war on Qing China, beginning the Sino-Japanese War.
1895 April 17 Japan defeats China, concluding the war with the signing of the Treaty of Shimonoseki, placing Taiwan and the Liaodong Peninsula, strategically located to access northeastern China (Manchuria), under Japanese control.
April 23 Russia, Germany, and France pressure Japan to return the Liaodong Peninsula to China (the so-called Triple Intervention), which it does on May 5.
1898 March 27 Russia secures a leasehold on the Liaodong Peninsula.
1902 January 30 The Anglo-Japanese Alliance, a treaty between equals, is formed.
1904 February 8 Japan attacks czarist Russia at Port Arthur, declaring war two days later.
1905 May 27–28 The Japanese navy scores a major victory in the Battle of Tsushima.
September 5 The Russo-Japanese War ends with the signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth, through the mediation of U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt.
November 17 Korea becomes a Japanese protectorate.
1906 August 1 Japan forms the Kwantung Army to protect its Manchurian possessions, newly acquired from Russia.
1910 August 29 Japan annexes Korea.
1912 July 30 Mutsuhito, the Meiji emperor, dies, succeeded by his son, Yoshihito.
1914 July 28 World War I breaks out.
August 23 Japan goes to war with Germany, enabling it to take over German possessions in China and the Pacific by November.
1915 January 18 Japan issues the Twenty-One Demands to Yuan Shikai’s China, but fails to win diplomatic concessions while antagonizing the Chinese.
1918 November 11 World War I ends, followed by the convocation of the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.
